I love my 1962 ranch house because it is mostly original and I can choose what I want to change instead of having to undo someone else’s “updates.” But, while I adore vintage bathrooms (especially the pink ones!), my original master bathroom is simply not cutting it in terms of function and cleanliness, plus its drab and dirty decor looks out of place with the rest of my cheerful house. That’s why — after living in our house and with this bathroom for 2 years — I’ve decided it is time to replace this old, original bathroom with the retro-modern bathroom of my dreams. I didn’t make this decision lightly — it’s a significant expense to remodel, for sure — but I count at least 12 reasons it’s time to renovate.
1. My master bathroom is mauve. I’m not one to shy away from color… I’ve decorated with everything from bright orange to mint green, but mauve is my least favorite color ever. When I wake up and go into my master bathroom, this color is just not communicating the bright, happy retro modern vibe that I long for. Even so, as much as I dislike mauve, I’m not one to base the need for a remodel on color alone. There are several other issues with my master bathroom that need to be fixed and quite frankly, it stresses me out!
Let’s start with the biggest offender, the shower. At first glance, it doesn’t look that bad…until you notice a few things…
2. At some point, the previous owners needed to repair the shower pipes, which necessitated removing some of the mauve tile. Instead of searching high and low for an exact match (they weren’t retro enthusiasts as many of us are), they replaced the missing mauve tiles with some brown tiles and called it “good enough.”
3. The grout is also cracking in the shower, which is not good at all. Cracked grout can allow water to get into all sorts of places that it shouldn’t be. This needs to be fixed ASAP.
4. There is no where to put shampoo, conditioner, body wash, etc. in this shower. I had to rig up a few suction cup containers and this shower caddy to get the job done. Not an ideal situation at all! Added bonus of this set up: Every once in a while the suction cup containers release from the wall in the middle of the night while we are sleeping, which scares us!
5. The final issue with the shower is the size of it. It is pretty cramped. An average sized person like myself takes no issue with this, but my tall husband with broad shoulders feels very claustrophobic, not to mention he has the tendency to accidentally bump the shower door open with his elbow while he is washing his hair, which gets water everywhere.
Next we move along to the sink area. At first glance this looks like an excellent example of a peachy keen retro sink, complete with hudee ring…
6. …upon further examination, you can see that the sink is rusting. I have tried and tried to get the rust off, but it always reappears after a few days. It probably has to do with the sink not draining well. Many times it will have standing water in it. We have tried cleaning out the pipes, but I think the whole drain line from the sink to the floor needs to be replaced. I’m sure there is 50 years of gunk in there just waiting for me to discover it.
7. The vintage faucet is also cool, but again 50 years of abuse has made it kinda crusty looking. It makes me sad because no matter how much I scrub, the sink never looks clean.
8. The years of moisture have taken their toll on the mirror and the wood trim on the window (the window itself is the only new thing in this bathroom).
9. The vanity is plywood and in decent shape. The two smaller drawers are great, but the pull out hamper smells like a thousand sweaty socks. I have tried nearly everything to rid it of that awful smell, but alas, I think the smell has embedded itself in the plywood. Now it is just a chunk of smelly wasted space.
10. There is a sad lack of towel bar space in this bathroom. All we have are these two bars, one works for the hand towels, but the other bar is not large enough to accommodate two bath towels while giving them adequate space to dry.
11. What this bathroom lacks in towel bar space, it makes up for in doors. There are two closets in the bathroom, the larger of which is where we keep our laundry baskets. It is very difficult to get them out of the closet and then out though the main bathroom door. It requires some tricky maneuvering skills and the doors constantly bang off each other.
12. The master bathroom also has plenty of light switches. There are a total of five different switches! When I remodel the space, I would like to have a fan timer switch and no more than two other switches. Five is far too many to keep track of!
This redo is going to be a gut remodel. I’m trying keep the cost down by moving as little plumbing as possible, but I am going to remove the mauve tile (which will basically necessitate new drywall), extend the tiny shower (to better accommodate my husband), replace the vanity, retile, paint and get all new hardware. From a design standpoint: My whole mantra is maintaining the retro while making it modern. I’m excited by the challenge of designing a new bathroom with the right retro vibe to fit the rest of the house.
I’ll be reporting on all the stages of my bathroom project here over the next several months. My next step is to draw up some plans and make a few mood board mock ups so I can source my materials. I’m also going to reread Pam’s bathroom remodeling checklist before I work out the budget. Stay tuned, this is going to be quite the job!
pam kueber says
It’s interesting: When I go into estate sale houses, I of course, also want to carefully ogle the bathrooms. There is a percentage that were (1) made with really great materials and (2) were very well maintained; it would be crying shame to gut these. Then there are others that (1) were not made with the greatest quality or longest-lasting materials and (2) also may not have been well maintained or (3) even if they were well-maintained, are just plain worn out; it may well be time to replace these for a whole new generation of use. There is no “single right answer” to this question.
MidModBeachGal says
“the pull out hamper smells like a thousand sweaty socks” Lol. I have never been able to tolerate previous owner bad smells. Ick.
Stacy says
That vintage faucet-it’s awfully cute. We scrubbed ours with steel wool and it looks brand new. That’s if you want to keep it. I certainly love looking at all the bling I could replace it with. I could have gone either way.
Robert S says
One of the very big upsides to a full-gut remodel, yet with appropriate new things that actually GO with the house, is it can help the house and its original character survive your departure should you sell down the road. It may keep a future buyer from gutting the bath and putting in a Tuscan special. As an agent that works with mid-century homes I find that as narrow as the audience is for true purist mid-century pink baths etc., there are a lot of people who don’t appreciate them because they have never seen a GOOD example of them. They may not have ever seen an Atomic Ranch magazine or heard of Retrorenovation or anything like that. All they know is HGTV and such. A cool looking, architecturally appropriate redo on a bath, for example, can have an appeal that goes beyond us hard-core mid-century folks to help open the eyes of more people as to the possibilities of working WITH your ranch or mod house design, instead of trying to stuff a Tuscan Villa inside of it. Nobody loves the original elements more than I, and I fret when I consider taking some things out, but when you are not a slave to all things original when those original elements may be questionable in condition or function, then you can help set your house up to be appealing as an appropriate mod or ranch to future buyers that might have not thought that was the style they were looking for, until they saw it with some style!
Kate says
Very well said Robert S!
pam kueber says
It’s fantastic to get your perspective as a realtor active in trying to save some of these houses, Robert. Thank you!
Sarah V says
I totally agree. I feel that my DH and I are just the current caretakers in our house’s life, and that it is our responsibility to do what we can to protect it (hello leaking copper pipes I’m talkin’ to you!), and maintain it in good working condition. And that with thoughful renovations we can help protect the spirit of our house for it’s future occupants while still ensuring it is a comfortable and functional space for modern living.
Brian T says
Pam has started her list of things that are definitely valuable to a Retro Renovator. How about a list of things that no one needs to feel guilty about tossing, even though they’re “vintage”? Item #1: Plastic tile! I just got rid of it in a bathroom I gutted — there was no question of trying to work with it. It seem like “mauve” might make the list for some reason, along with “things that smell” and “things that will never look clean.” Pam, you’ve instilled a sort of moral code about “thou shalt not assume pink bathrooms are too dated to live with”; can you start up a list of “thou shalt not beat thyself up for throwing out ____”?
pam kueber says
Hmmm. Okay. Here is my first draft:
“Thou shalt not beat thyself up for throwing out… features you have lived with for a while, sought to understand (rather than just h*** in a knee-jerk way), decide just aren’t for you, and which you can afford to change without plunging the family into debt that will stress you out. This is your house; make it the place you love. Let the old stuff go with respect for the service it has provided the generations before; no evil-glee sledgehammering. Send still-functional materials to the Re-Store, if you really think someone else will want them. And of course, prioritize renovations that address identified safety and environmental issues — and when you renovate, engage properly licensed professionals and Renovate Safe.”
I am wary of calling out any particular items. For example, plastic tiles may be just lovely in certain applications.
How is that for a start?
Kate says
Amen Pam!
Jody says
Amen on the evil-glee sledgehammering. Just saw a fix-my-bathroom show on HGTV where they ripped out original pink tile with such glee that it hurt my heart, with NO mention of it having any historical significance. Come on, designers–at least acknowledge that it’s not all awful!
Just another Pam says
Oh, Jody, you are so right! Every time I see them take a sledge to a perfectly usable and frequently nice set of kitchen cupboards than many people would be thrilled to find at the Re-store it just depresses me.
Saturday I saw the people on the show destroy the original kitchen 30’s kitchen with all it’s adorable nooks and trim to put in another dark wood one with granite counters. le sigh
lady brett says
lovely mantra – such a holistic view of remodeling =)
Jody says
How can she change the color without starting from scratch?
Marie says
You’re right, she has to gut to get what she wants.
And so many of those pink bathrooms got trashed because the new owner couldn’t stand the color.
I’m glad the couple on the previous post figured out how to retro-update their French Provincial pink without gutting it.
Jody says
I think you’ve clearly thought it through. Our new house is very 1953, but the previous owners made several updates–like adding a master en suite that is anything but retro, but is still beautiful, and adding granite countertops, but keeping the original Geneva cabinetry–and I’m nothing but grateful for it. You own your house; it shouldn’t own you!
I can’t wait to see how you handle a retro-modern update! Be sure to give us all the deets on your sources!
lady brett says
looking forward to seeing the updates on this!
our bathroom is in desperate shape, but it is such a huge project (as in, the floor, ceiling, and walls are going to have to go – and that’s what you can tell *without* tearing anything out) and we haven’t got either the money or time (or guts!) to tackle it. i’m excited to see an example of a gut-remodel to get ideas from for when we do decide to deal with it (or when *it* decides we’re dealing with it, as our house often does with projects!).
Jane / MulchMaid says
Some tough decisions here, Kate. I admire the way you’ve thought this through and analyzed the specific problems. We are faced with a similar dilemma in our main bath. I LOVE the old, bright yellow laminate countertops with their metal edges, but it is amazingly difficult to design around them, color-wise. I’m still torn between keeping or dumping…
Can’t wait to see what your thoughtful solutions will be for your bathroom!
Terri says
So with you! I never felt the bathrooms were clean…funny replacement tiles, faucets that were rusty, chipped sinks, tiny cast-iron tub, cracked floor tiles…the remainder of the house was so pretty!
We just completed 2 bathroom remodels in our 1948 ranch. Watch out for faucets, I’d fall in love with some and when I opened the box, they were chrome colored plastic!
4″ x 4″ white tile is easily had, so we did it in both bathroom. One bathroom with black trim half-way up the wall. Lavender was the wall paint color. The other bathroom had a trim of green/blue seaglass (not really retro, but it is sooo pretty) There are tile floor heaters that come on a timer too – set the warm floor for 6 a.m.! There are nice light/fan combos that fit the retro bathroom. Switch plates from Rejuvenation. We had a similar plywood cabinet replaced with maple, there were many originals in the neighborhood. We did a marble counter – it matches the window sills in the remainder of the house. We replaced the cracked block glass windows at the same time – the vents had no longer opened.
While everything was gutted, we replaced the vent pipes from the basement through the attic. No more mystery leaks on the basement ceiling!
Grown-up Kohler tub = 6″ less in our one odd shaped closet. Shower heads that work with a tall hubby.